Press Releases

2014

August 7, 2014

Kurita Announces Full-Scale Launch of a New Maintenance Service for Water Treatment Facilities
Suggesting Appropriate Maintenance by Visualizing the Operating Status and Sharing Information with the Customer

Kurita Water Industries Ltd. (Head Office: Nakano-ku, Tokyo; President: Toshiyuki Nakai) is pleased to announce its full-scale launch of a maintenance service as part of its water treatment facilities business. With this service, Kurita installs water quality sensors in a water treatment system it has delivered to a customer and collects water quality data online on a real-time basis. It then analyzes the data together with results of regular water quality analysis, thereby visualizing the operating status of the water treatment system with a simple index to share the information with the customer.

Under its system for providing optimal support to every customer, Kurita offers maintenance services that contribute to the stable operation of the water treatment facilities it has provided to customers by maintaining and improving the facilities and preventing problems. It aims to provide maintenance services by responding to the factory operating status and water quality and quantity, which change daily, based on real-time information about the operating status of the facilities. To ensure the appropriate maintenance frequency and establish the optimal operating conditions, it is essential to check the ever-changing conditions of the facilities accurately by collecting operating data continuously and analyzing a variety of data, including past trends.

For this purpose, Kurita has developed a new method of managing water treatment facilities, by making use of the experience and expertise it has developed through maintenance and operation management services. With this service, Kurita installs sensors in some parts of a water treatment system for full-time online monitoring of water quality, water quantity, and other information, in addition to the rigorous analysis of water quality through regular sampling. Further, Kurita analyses the operating data and the results of the water quality analysis by applying its unique patent technology, thereby checking the water treatment status on a timely basis. It then provides the results in the form of the Condition Index, which enables the operating status, performance degradation, and other conditions of the water treatment system to be checked at a glance. Kurita shares the Index with the customer and provides condition-based maintenance services based on real-time operating data.

The maintenance service comprises two new services, a Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions (*) and a Special Contract for Supporting a Shift to Cost-Saving Operations (*), in addition to an annual maintenance contract, and contributes to optimizing the operating conditions of the entire factory, including utility consumption. Prior to the full-scale launch of the service, Kurita repeated its trial operation at customers’ worksites, thereby verifying its benefits. It will continue to promote the introduction of the service and work with customers to ensure the appropriate maintenance and cost-saving operations of their facilities based on their operating statuses in its efforts to increase the added value of its maintenance services.

*See the supplementary materials: "Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions and Special Contract for Supporting a Shift to Cost-Saving Operations," "Case Examples of Trial Operation of the Maintenance Service," and "Mechanism of the Maintenance Service."

< Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions and Special Contract for Supporting a Shift to Cost-Saving Operations >

1)

Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions

Under this special contract, Kurita collects real-time operating data on a customer's water treatment system by using sensors installed in key parts of the system and analyzes the water quality by taking samples of water from the customer's facilities on a regular basis. It then analyses the collected operating data and the results of the water quality analysis by applying its patent technology. Based on the results of the analysis, Kurita creates the Condition Index, which enables the operating status, performance degradation, and other conditions of the system to be checked at a glance, and provides it to the customer.

2)

Special Contract for Supporting a Shift to Cost-Saving Operations

Under this special contract, Kurita analyzes the data collected in the Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions to create a graph showing the correlation between the amount of the reduction in costs for utilities such as water, electricity and steam, and the risk of the occurrence of facility problems in a Cost-Risk Simulation. Based on this simulation, Kurita then suggests the optimal operating conditions and adjusts and improves the facility operations to enable the optimal conditions.

In this way, Kurita repeats the cycle of collecting and analyzing data, changing the operating conditions, and reporting the results to create operating conditions with the optimal cost-risk balance together with customers.

< Case Examples of the Service >

1)

Contribution to stable operation and appropriate maintenance of a system

In this case example, Kurita prevented the occurrence of problems with a customer’s reverse osmosis membrane system without replacing the membrane. Kurita had confirmed the degradation of the performance of the reverse osmosis membrane through the Condition Index in the Special Contract for Visualization of Operating Conditions. Based on continuous data on past trends, Kurita identified the cause of the performance degradation, which was a reduction in the amount of treated water due to clogging of the membrane, and immediately took countermeasures including cleaning the membrane. In this way, Kurita prevented problems that might have been caused by the performance degradation of the membrane and contributed to stable operations and the appropriate maintenance of the facility.

2)

Reduction of utility costs

In this case example, Kurita reduced the amount of steam used for feed-water heating of a customer’s water treatment system.
By analyzing continuous data on past trends of the subject system in the Special Contract for Supporting a Shift to Cost-Saving Operations, Kurita suggested a feed-water temperature condition that would enable the amount of steam used to be reduced while maintaining stable operations. It later repeated the data collection and analyses under the changed operating conditions and reduced the feed-water temperature of the system progressively. This enabled the cost of the steam used for heating the system in winter to be reduced by more than 50%.